Writing and the Internet and My Novel
Evidence of pre-smartphone, pre-social media inability to concentrate.
I had a blog called “reader of depressing books” from 2005 to 2013. I’ve been going through some of it as research for an essay I’m writing titled “How to Write an Essay Collection” for my in-progress essay collection Reasons to Live.
I deleted most of the blog at some point, which I somewhat regret, but I can still see all the posts on Wayback Machine. I found this post I made in 2005. It is evidence of pre-smartphone, pre-social media inability to concentrate.
7/28/2005
writing and the internet and my novel
i write everyday
i'm been working on my novel
here's a typical 'session' of me working on my novel
1. get coffee and drink half of it
2. check e-mail
3. check some other things
4. check my other e-mail and download the manuscript of my novel
5. get up and go to the bathroom
6. sit back down at the computer
7. check e-mail
8. maximize the manuscript of the novel in microsoft word
9. begin to read it
10. feel a little uninspired
11. check e-mail
12. feel bad that there are no new e-mails
13. think about maximizing the manuscript of the novel in microsoft word
14. think briefly about my future
15. feel a little doomed
16. drink the rest of the coffee
17. look on the internet for something to inspire me
18. google news my favorite authors
19. check e-mail
20. use the bathroom
21. feel a little hungry
22. go outside and buy a banana, and tea
23. eat the banana, drink the tea
24. use the bathroom
25. back at the computer, check my e-mail
26. feel social and good from the coffee and the tea and from having just been outside; answer my e-mails
27. maximize and scroll through my novel, quickly, without actually thinking about or acknowleding it really
28. scroll to the top and begin to read my novel
29. notice that my eyes are unfocusing a little
30. think about other aspects of my life
31. think about my short-story collection
32. focus my eyes
33. stretch my neck
34. stand up and stretch my neck and arms
35. select-all my novel and change the font size to eight and single-space it all, to gain perspective
36. scroll down, quickly, like a game
37. stop suddenly
38. read over a section
39. delete a comma that i had added the day before
40. delete an adjective that i had added the day before
41. delete some other things that i had added the day before
42. go to the part that i consistently enjoy working on and write one or two sentences and add em-dash parentheticals to a few places
43. rewrite those one or two sentences for a long time
44. finally combine the two sentences into one sentence and rewrite that sentence and then finally get a really good sentence there
45. feel really good and social after writing that sentence that was really good
46. reply to some more e-mails because of feeling really good and social
47. send some e-mails to people
48. go on AOL instant messager to talk to people
49. talk to people for a while
50. use the bathroom
51. google and then technorati some of my favorite authors
52. begin to feel a little tired and uncreative
53. look at my novel
54. tell myself to spend one hour straight only working on the novel
55. acknowledge to myself that it won't happen
56. check e-mail
57. tell myself one hour starting now
58. get up to use the bathroom
59. realize that the music i have on is getting annoying
60. turn off the music
61. feel really agitated and hopeless
62. threaten myself to work on the novel or else
63. begin to read the beginning of the novel
64. realize that that sentence i thought earlier was good is derivative and not even that good and go to where it is and look at it and then delete it
65. go to 'edit' and do 'undo-delete'
66. copy the sentence and paste it at the end of the manuscript
67. go over all the 30,000 words pasted at the end of the novel that i am not going using for the novel
68. find that some of those things are really good
69. try to re-insert some of those things into the currently 10,000 word novel
70. tell myself i shouldn't trust myself to do this right now, since the coffee was a while ago and right now i won't think that anything is good, overall, no matter what, in life
71. type 'PRINT THIS OUT AND ORGANIZE IT' on the top of the manuscript
72. print it out
73. check my e-mail
74. use the bathroom
75. e-mail the novel to myself
76. read over some drafts of poems i'm working on that are in my gmail's 'drafts' section
77. work on those a little
78. read over all the sixty or so 'drafts' of e-mails that i have
79. delete some of those
80. go outside and buy another tea
81. decide to work on my novel for thirty minutes straight or else
82. download my novel
83. check e-mail
84. google myself
85. google my favorite authors
86. google my name and the names of my favorite authors
87. maximize my novel and think about screaming
88. check e-mail
89. go to amazon.com and read reviews of books by lorrie moore
etc.
also, i left out 'check how many people have visited my blog,' 'read other people's blogs and make amusing, irrelevant comments,' 'put my head down on the desk and listen to one or two songs without thinking,' and some other things
8:49 PM 20 comments
I think this is brilliant!
I remember back then doing a lot of googling of people’s names too.